Mat and Kellie

This is an account of our lives as we travel around the United States and the world. Some seasonal work,some long term, but always an adventure. Join us and give us and others ideas and advice to better enjoy this ever evolving planet of ours.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

As you all remember El Dia De Coconut it upon us. The day of the year when no matter where you are or how cold it is you drink out of coconuts to celebrate the finer weather of the past and future. This El Dia De Coconut is a special one for us, it will be our first wedding anniversary.

We decided this year we would celebrate our anniversary on the beaches of Colombia. We will be flying from here in PDX to LAX onto Panama City, Panama and then finally landing in Cartegena Colombia at 4:20pm the next day. We are going to spend our first two days in Cartegena, at hopefully a nice hotel, the Arsenal Hotel. We are then going to head up to the Parque National Natural Tayrona where we will be spending the night in deluxe hammocks on the beach. This at least is the plan, but it may be too hot so we may opt for a hotel in nearby Santa Marta.

After the park we will be heading back to Cartegena to catch a plane out to San Andres Island on Feb 20, where we plan to catch another small plane over to Providencia. Providencia is an even smaller island where we plan to scuba, snorkel. snack, and catch up on some hammock time. We are planning to stay at a small two bedroom guest house on an even smaller island called Santa Catalina.

I will update as soon as possible but we are planning to unplug our lives as best we can for two weeks.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

By this picture you would think, how could anyone have a problem with a cat this cute. Let me tell you, it takes work, at doing nothing, to look that good. Two days ago I noticed that she was staring at the oven, she tends to space out so this did not surprise me that much. Yesterday as I was running out the door to work I saw it; a rabies, flea infested, hanta virus ridden mouse. I have had many strange things make it into my house, bed bugs, sand fleas, tarantula, and recently a very large caterpillar, but never a mouse. I was a big elephant in headlights. I did not know what to do. I looked to my left then to my right. Do I call Kellie? Do I try to catch it and risk a series of rabies shot so painful death would be pleasurable? No, turn on all the lights in the house so that it thinks it is day time. They are nocturnal after all.

I finished work and ran directly to the only store open at 3:30 am, Walgreen's. This turned into an adventure in itself. Do you know who shops at Walgreen's at 3:30 am? No one normal. I soon found myself in a best mouse trap, bed bug, and various other pest problems with a very nice but very strange clerk and an over pierced, painted face, ripped skirt punk rocker chick. I must say my life is nothing but boring.

Back to the main problem at hand. As of day one, no mouse has been caught, and we all know that princess cat of ours will never touch a dirty little mouse.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Thursday, September 9, 2010

For Kellie's birthday we went to Mopin Oregon to raft the Deschutes. To our surprise The Dude was the guide. For those of you who do not know, The Dude, he is the character from the Big Labowski. After the river trip we went to Bend Oregon, a small town we fell in love with, unfortunately there are no jobs there.

I was asked by one of my employers if I had Friday off. Afraid they were going to ask me to do some undesirable work I asked why. To my surprise they asked me to be a member of their Ice Cream making team. This would be a tournament in Pioneer Square to find out who would be the fastest ice cream and tastiest ice cream makers. This would be judged by a well known news anchor and the dairy princess among other dignitaries. To my employers this meant make the best ice cream and get the name of the restaurant out. To me this meant find the most awesome outfit you can find and crank some ice cream. Soon The Creamanator would get the rest of his teammates on the bandwagon. To our surprise our dark cherry chevre ice cream did not win tastiest, an by no means were we the fastest, but one weeks later they brought a trophy to the restaurant and awarded us most enthusiastic. Hurray for teem BELLY!